Lumesse ETWeb empower is an end-to-end integrated, people-centric Talent Management suite that
empowers employees to contribute to their company’s success by putting them at the heart of the
business. The solution equips employees to reach their career and business goals in their everyday work.

Lumesse Talent Acquisition helps organisations to engage, recruit and onboard the
best people, through a solution that puts user experience centre stage and makes
the acquisition journey more collaborative and insight-driven. Because Talent Matters.

Breadcrumb

Lumesse All

Why Suite Plus Best of Breed HR Components Represent a Wise Option

The term “beat a dead horse” is neither a politically correct nor ‘gentle’ axiomatic expression, but if I wanted to explain its meaning to you, I’d use the debate over what’s best – a full integrated talent management suite or an aggregation of nifty individual applications you can reasonably piece together.

This debate has gone on for two decades, across nearly all industries, and continuing its futile discussion would be similar to beating a poor horse that is already deceased.

So as not to contribute to this cruel equine rigor mortis, I propose that the ‘answer’ to this unmentionable debate is now both paradoxically obsolete and crystal-clear. The answer is that today it’s all about the customer, or end user, and when we go online to do our job, or apply for one, we don’t care if we’re using Vendor A’s trademarked system or Vendor B’s secure vetted app, as long as it works. That is, what we truly care about is our quality of experience using the tool to get the information we need to do our job while avoiding having to remember 13 or more different log-in credentials. Sometimes a full talent management suite solves the multiple log-in and password chore, but then security (all your eggs in one basket), best-of-breed functionality and flexibility all inevitably become question marks. What if your essential users, including job applicants, were more comfortable using non-system components such as collaborative or social apps on their mobile devices, when doing their jobs or just communicating with you?

What if there exist innovative zeitgeist apps your top candidates or company producers and leaders want to use, but your company-driven, system-wide company culture prohibit? Can you really afford this lack of agility and flexibility, vendor-centricity, or one-size-fits-all approach?

There’s another important consideration – one of ROI. Which of the two beat-a-dead-horse approaches (system vs. best-of-breed app) will best deliver the ROI your specific organization requires? For example, if you are a midsize enterprise, when it’s time to upgrade it may NOT make economic sense for you to renew the entire system you’ve invested in. You may instead want to bring in some best-of-breed HR software solutions next round.

Adaptive UI/UX for ROI

An adaptive HR user interface/user experience (UI/UX) continuously learns from a user’s actions and offers analytics throughout the talent management lifecycle. This will improve ROI as you get activities done with the least amount of clicks. Natural language processing (NLP) drives the easiest UI/UX – one in which you do not click anymore, you “speak” to the system and it does the job and delivers results. In addition, the use of chat bots (computer programs that simulate conversation between your company and a user) will help to drive an intelligent UI/UX with the best ROI in mind.

All this makes the outdated discussion on suite vs. best of breed irrelevant as users will rely on UI/UX methods that are more advanced than just the identical look and feel of web pages.

The outstanding question to answer is how to achieve a better and seamless integration on the data side while addressing the specific use cases via different modules inside talent management – such as internal mobility. The ongoing challenge is to define a more standard way of integrating best of breed modules and new innovations fast and easy – maybe via a talent bus connector, which can become a standard like HR XML.

So, maybe the beaten horse didn’t die in vain. Maybe the answer to this age-old argument is not only obsolete but also simple and achievable. A modular software approach can complement your existing talent management system strategy. Supporting this hybrid approach, top research firms such as Gartner predict that HR suite adopters will still need to obtain 20 to 30 percent of their HR requirements via point solutions over the next three years.

Open API platform, so you can extend and scale into the HR / talent management ecosystem with the confidence and flexibility you require

Ability to plug in to what you need now, while being poised for what you need tomorrow

Lower immediate and capital costs, because you invest in what you need in the present with capability for further technical heterogeneity later

Integrated talent management data inside a secure open API platform feed your recruiters, HR managers and talent decision-makers with visibility and insight from talent sourcing right through to succession management.

Whether you prefer a single talent management system, talent acquisition platform or a flexible foundation from which you can easily integrate HR applications, Lumesse provides an end to end modular approach with the option to tie into any full integrated talent management system .

The Growing Marketplace for Modular HR Software

The ongoing debate of suite vs. best-of-breed talent management software is like beating a dead horse, but go ahead arguing if you wish. Lumesse addresses both sides of the argument… as we continue to innovate the way we serve the global talent management software market we’ve served since 1999.

Sign Up For Blog Updates

First Name

Last Name

Email

Comments

Dr. Peter Wiedemann

Article by:

General Manager, Talent Acquisition/Product Strategy

Dr. Peter Wiedemann is general manager of Lumesse talent acquisition and head of Lumesse group product strategy and group service delivery. He holds a Ph.D. in business administration with economics from the University of Hamburg, Germany, an MBA and an MSc in computer science from the University of Applied Sciences in Munich, Germany.